


you are life (and you are the veil)

by Technicolour (Lirriel)



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: (he gets better though), AKA Self-Cannibalism, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Self-Harm, Suicide, Talking Animals, can you believe this is a christmas gift fic, everything else is just terrible, historical accuracy? i don't know her, there's like 5k words of the actual ship in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:33:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21723964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirriel/pseuds/Technicolour
Summary: He is called Beauty because that is what he is. But it is not a name for a person, and he is not a thing to be claimed and coveted. He only recognizes the importance of names when he remembers he has lost his own. They are all trapped, in some way or another.
Relationships: Lee Dongmin | Cha Eunwoo/Park Minhyuk | Rocky
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	you are life (and you are the veil)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonlitdrive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlitdrive/gifts).



> Written for Ray because I love them. Merry-fucking-Christmas :') 
> 
> if you didn't check the tags, **content warning** for: suicide (of an animal), character death (referenced and actual, the onscreen deaths don't stick), cannibalism (of the self), and a bit of graphic imagery in the form of violence. there is some fairly subtle emotional abuse/mind control, but it's not overly noticeable.

**1.**

He is born with eyes like dark glass.

**2.**

Many years later, he recalls the circumstances of his birth: sprung fully-formed from the depths of the Writer’s mind, soul-memories curled around his name like a protective membrane. It sat in the bottom of the Well, deposited there for safekeeping, for the rejection of a future the Writer has spun out over a thousand lifetimes.

But that is later, so much later, when he has his name returned. And every story needs a beginning, even if it is the epilogue of another tale.

**3.**

He wakes as a man, with the creeping fingers of dawn brushing across his cheeks. It presses butterfly kisses upon his eyelids. When his lashes finally part, they reveal eyes like dark glass that tint near-amber where the sun’s light focuses.

His skin is spun moonbeams, his hair black and silky like freshly-laid ink. He is something close to human perfection, embellished by a heart that can only remember him with a wrenching wistfulness.

But he does not know this, so newly-born is he. He only recognizes that he _exists_ when he is named.

“Beauty,” the Writer calls him.

It fits like a second skin, and Beauty does not question why it brings bile with it.

**4.**

The Writer is there with him when he wakes up. (He always is.)

**5.**

Beauty awakens in a room that is grand and great, fit for a king. (Though he does not learn what a king is until he discovers the library and devours books more swiftly than he consumes food.)

The bed he lies upon is so wide he cannot stretch his fingers from one end to the other – and he does try, later. The canopy is tied back with navy ropes stitched through with gold. The blankets are stuffed with goose feathers, patterned blue and cream; the sheets that lay beneath are shaded darker: abyssal blue.

**6.**

(The Writer tells him to ‘ware the well, that he not fall to a watery grave. That its blue depths descend deeper than black, that it wipes out the senses. That it is a death he should never experience.)

**7.**

(He learns later that what separates black from white is merely a matter of physics. Life and death operate under a similar principle.

And rules are made to be broken.)

**8.**

The Writer is with him when he wakes up, sat upon a chair that has been dragged away from its matching desk across the room. Compared to Beauty’s effervescent appearance, the Writer is more human.

(“Earth to air,” the Cat says later. “Dirt’s pretty in the right light, but it’s never effortless like the sky.”)

He is squat, solid, tanned. Dark-eyed, light-haired.

But Beauty focuses best on the smile that is never far from his lips. It is the only thing that keeps his eyes from straying southward, to where curls of script in an unknowable language peek from beneath the Writer’s collar.

The Writer is smiling when he names Beauty.

**9.**

To be named is to be known. And Beauty knows that it is his name.

He sits up in bed, touches wonderingly at his lips. He repeats the name—“Beauty”—and it sounds and tastes and feels like a kiss.

He says it again, and again. On the second attempt he presses his fingers to his lips more firmly, traces out exactly how they form the word. On the last try, he simply says his name.

Its worn into him now, as permanent as his bones wrapped in muscle and fat.

He would have to tear himself apart to take it out.

**10.**

He does, later.

**11.**

“That’s you,” the Writer agrees. His words are a smile. His face is a smile. His body is a smile. Beauty thinks his entire being is almost like a smile.

He finds only one sticking point with this thought: that the smile is sadder in the Writer’s eyes, not bright and blinding but demure and soft.

“My Beauty,” the Writer sighs out, reaching with one hand ( _large and strong and gentle_ the way he always is _except what is ‘always’?_ ) to stroke Beauty’s hair down. Just lying on the bed has set it into disarray.

His fingers are delicate, and Beauty breathes out an answering exhale. He doesn’t know what to say.

**12.**

“Good morning.” It sounds right. Lonely, but right.

“Good morning,” two voices echo, and this is how he meets the Cat.

**13.**

The Cat was there when he was born. But the Cat is always there, he discovers later.

It’s a trickster character—a failed creation, the Writer admits. There’s a Fool in every deck, an Aesop in every fable. It escapes many of the rules the Writer authors. But it cannot outrun them all.

But when they meet, it is a black hump on the desk, so nondescript that Beauty misses its presence entirely. It is only when the Cat rises up, back drawn stiff as a bow, and blinks its great, gold eyes that Beauty sees it.

He wonders if he only imagined it speaking. There was the reverberance of a second voice, but it is only the Writer and himself in the room. And the Cat.

Cats cannot speak. He is sure of this.

**14.**

The Writer possesses none of Beauty’s turmoil. He turns with Beauty to regard the Cat.

(He does not smile so much as he did. Beauty wonders if the Cat has caused dissatisfaction.)

“Cat,” the Writer says. The word does not lilt like a request but neither does it land so harshly as a command. And yet the Cat comes, so easily that again Beauty must question his reality.

(By now he is _certain_ that cats cannot speak but—) He wonders how it can come so easily. He knows what a cat is, as easily as he knows what a bed is, what a sun is, what a man is. And because he _knows_ , Beauty also knows that cats are not creatures accustomed to obedience. They do not come when called. 

But this one does.

(He doubts himself, a little.)

The Cat crosses the floor in that swift trotting gait that all predators have adapted. Then it gathers its hindquarters beneath itself and springs, neatly landing upon the bed. It pads nearer to Beauty, showing no fear in its stark yellow eyes—and so Beauty stretches his hand out toward it.

It does not duck away, though he had feared it might. He is able to stroke across its head, fingers skimming over the silky, thin fur. His thumb brushes against the shell of its left ear, and he wonders at how thin it is, how fragile. It could crumple like paper.

The cat stares at him the entire time.

That insistent gaze should be unnerving. But it just emboldens him, and his fingers slip beneath its chin.

He only realizes it is not pure black when it raises its head, accepting and _encouraging_ the nails he scrapes along the underside of its jaw. With its throat bared, Beauty is able to see a dash of white nestled into the black fur that runs down its chest. It carries another splash of white on its back foot; Beauty thinks of socks and smiles.

But when the Cat purrs, something uncomfortable tightens his chest.

“And here I thought you’d be unfriendly,” the Writer says to the Cat. The corners of his mouth upturn.

**15.**

The Cat answers, “No.”

**16.**

Cats are not meant to speak. Beauty is so, so certain of this.

He looks toward the Writer, the man who named him—if he is unconcerned, then perhaps it is Beauty who is wrong. The Writer’s expression is no different from before the animal spoke. And so Beauty must think that this is the reality of his world.

He was wrong.

Accepting, he thinks, is easier than trying to puzzle out the clashing of what his mind says with what his reality sees.

**17.**

(Dissension still exists in the depths of his mind. It floats around the empty space, as inconsequential as a mote upon the open air.)

**18.**

“Then you’ll care for him?” the Writer asks.

Beauty recognizes that, as a newborn, he must be guided by those wiser. He wishes to rebel against this, how easily he is cast as something to be passed between the Cat and the Writer.

And yet he did not know that cats spoke—shame stills his tongue and flushes the nape of his neck red.

“Was there ever any doubt?” the Cat asks, voice boyishly sulky.

A memory stirs like the scrape of a nail against the inside of Beauty’s mind. But before he can even examine _what_ he feels, it shreds as swiftly as tissue beneath insistent fingers.

He bites his lip and is unsurprised when the Cat fixes its ghoulish yellow eyes on him.

They sit too large in the creature’s face.

“Be quiet, Writer,” it says at last. Its tail flicks as it breaks eye contact with Beauty.

He wonders why it seems incapable of holding his gaze for longer than a handful of heartbeats.

The Writer laughs and says, “Sorry, but I had to ask.”

**XX** _**.** _

_Beauty_ is not a name commonly given to a person. It is used as a pet name, a nickname, an exclamation of love (or obsession). When he later finds it in stories, it is always assigned second-hand: a title conferred on an often-unwilling subject.

It is a way of laying claim.

**19.**

The cat smooshes the black velvet of its nose into the crook of his thumb.

Beauty tries out their names, slowly. He says, “Writer,” first and finds he appreciates the soft finish.

“Cat” demands more of his mouth, despite its short length. It cuts with a finality that sends another flutter of unease through him. He pets the Cat, perhaps harder than he should.

It only nudges at his hand, and he feels its tongue run soft-scratchy across the pad of his thumb.

“You taste like sweat,” the Cat tells him.

**20.**

“I’m happy you’re awake,” the Writer says.

It sounds like the start of the end, and Beauty finds himself thrusting his hand out, clumsily—it swipes at empty air. But the Writer takes pity on him, and their hands unite; the Writer’s palm is smooth and cool, pleasant against the hot, slippery thing that Beauty struggles to comprehend as _his_.

The Writer’s smile curls like regret as he continues, “I’ve work to do, but we’ll see each other later. At dinner. I promise.”

He holds Beauty’s hand a moment more before releasing him. Beauty’s hand flops back down onto the bed with all the grace of a dead fish.

(His hand still feels warm and slippery, nothing at all like a dead fish, but it’s the first thing that comes to his mind.)

The Writer uses his freed hand to comb through Beauty’s hair. The Writer’s fingers are still cool, and they brush pleasantly up Beauty’s forehead and across his scalp; he has to fight against the urge to close his eyes, to lean into the Writer’s touch the way the Cat did with his.

“My Beauty,” the Writer says again. His hand curls into a fist as he withdraws it, properly standing now. The skin around his eyes crease when he looks toward the cat; Beauty cannot decipher his expression.

The Cat raises its chin, and Beauty recognizes the challenge that flares in its eyes. But they do not speak, they do not clash, and it is only a moment longer before the Writer flashes Beauty one last smile and turns away.

Beauty watches the Writer depart, and his own hand grips the blanket tight.

He is overwhelmed with how little he knows and how new he is.

**21.**

The Cat draws him back from the yawning white void that opens in his mind.

(There is so much emptiness, so much lost _but why is it lost_ knowledge. He thinks he could drown, trying to scrape together pieces of himself he knows shouldn’t exist—but then why does he feel like he is missing so much, why is everything so familiar and so wrong at the same time—)

It _prrft_ s, a bird-like trill that is distinctly feline, and his gaze drops down to where it has crawled atop his thighs. The weight of its paws is small but insistent. Somehow, it is heavy enough to ground him.

“Cat—” he says, floundering for something to say.

It looks up at him with those moon-spun eyes and says, softly and sweetly, “I know, Beauty. I’ll help you.”

**22.**

The Cat’s “help”, Beauty learns, is neither lesser nor more than it appears. The Cat calls it “Schrödinger” as if it expects the name to explain everything.

It does not. (Beauty thinks it is familiar. And he is certain that the Cat is using it incorrectly.)

The Cat calls on personal tutors and private attendants. Most are nameless and thus faceless (in that Beauty can never recall their individual features after they have taken their leave), but Cat designates the two who rule the rest “Teacher” and “Keeper”.

**23.**

(Beauty does not question these names, but the mote of dissension sparks red like an ember stoked by a caress of breath.)

**24.**

Once, recently come from a stirring rendition of breakfast that saw the Cat launch itself into the chandelier over some overblown slight, Beauty asks Teacher what language the words upon the Writer’s skin is written in.

The man blanches. Squirms.

Beauty is reminded of a butterfly, wings already pinned in place. It awaits the final nail.

(He knows, from entomology lessons, that dry mounting is only ever done after the specimen is deceased. He still considers the descriptor apt for how briefly terrified the Teacher appears.)

Beauty relents. He switches topics, deftly slicing through his previous query with a direct question on how collectors preserve caterpillars. Compared to their contemporaries, they cannot simply be dried out and then pinned in place.

The Teacher smiles, like a man come upon the last good lick of alcohol, and sets about explaining how the insect’s insides are dragged out by forceps before a straw tube is inserted and air is blown into the hollow cavity.

“We would then heat the outside, carefully, so that it would dry out in this shape,” the Teacher finishes.

The next day, his Teacher is not his Teacher—and he thinks he should not question the script that crawls up the Writer’s torso, digging black fingers into his clavicle, grasping at his throat. 

**25.**

He is never punished. The Writer never reprimands him. The Cat looks at him but says nothing.

**26.**

He holds an ever-growing wonder for his home.

It is something like a castle, with a portcullis and high-set stone walls. But it is primarily a manse, some three levels tall and long enough that Beauty always finds a new room unexplored when he sets out in exploration.

He finds something unique in each room, but there are three that engrave themselves upon his heart, prompting his return again and again. He sighs wistfully within the ballroom, idles away the hours talking to the Writer in his personal study—and then there is the library, situated on the third floor and grandest of its kind. He thinks it must rival those belonging to royalty, and when he mentions it (dreamily, for never-ending knowledge at his fingertips draws forth a breathlessness that is dizzying and blissful) to the Writer, the Writer answers with a smile. Says, “That was the plan.”

He spends entire days curled up in the library, and it is only the insistent tug of the Cat’s teeth in his ear that is ever enough to rouse him and draw him downstairs to sup.

**XX.**

The library feeds him. It is the garden that frees him.

The garden, the gate, the well.

Minhyuk, too—though he will only ever say that ~~D̴̛̟̭̠̐̂̀̿͐̇̿̀̄o̷̧̧̜̮͈̮̒̈́͌̌ͅn̴̲̺̙̲̐ġ̴̠̟̣̺̊͑͠m̴͔̜͕͈̳̘̓͌̈́͊̽͒̌̀̊i̶̢̩̮̥̘̼̝̔́̈́͗͘n̷̡̦͖̺̘͇̭̙̫͂͝͝~~ freed himself.

**27.**

Behind the manse lies the garden, accessible only through the servants’ wing.

(Later, Beauty will wonder why only the faceless servants have such easy access. It is too beautiful to be so blatantly ignored by the lord of the lands.)

Beauty comes to love the garden as much as he loves the library.

**28.**

(And then he loves it _more_.)

**29.**

Though the stone walls rise high around the rest of the Writer’s estates, they dip low around the garden, dropping so that they are only a head taller than Beauty, overlaid with flowering creepers and sticky honeysuckle. And the garden is _grand_ —grand in a way that rivals the library, makes mockery of the ballroom, cares not for the secrets of the Writer’s study.

A squat gardener’s hut stands near the servants’ entrance, but there is no true caretaker, and the plants are allowed to live and die as they will. Beauty, when he does venture into the garden, sees that servants will occasionally trim back a vine too adventurous or prune a bush hellbent on choking out its neighbors. But, otherwise, the flora are without restriction.

Beauty finds himself envious.

**30.**

Beauty is careful in his exploration of the garden, the Writer’s warnings a constant refrain in his ears.

The Writer loves him and the Writer cares for him—and Beauty finds himself bereft of bravery, when he realizes the paths wind through an assortment of fruiting trees, rising vegetables, flowering herbs, and some mixture of flowers and shrubbery that appear more decorative than delicious.

He has been told this is from whence their produce is drawn, but information is more easily absorbed and understood when taken firsthand.

Despite his apprehension, he charts his course and ventures further with each expedition.

**31.**

He finds the gate before he finds the well.

**32.**

One day he tackles the garden early. It is a day of rest, which means he is free to spend his time as he so wishes.

The Cat has been called to the Writer’s study a handful of times in the recent days, and each time it returns with the tips of its white claws pricking from between its paw pads.

(Once, he had gone to suggest a book to the Writer, for they were in the habit of exchanging stories and discussing the characters that colored each page. But he had stopped at the Writer’s door, confused, for it was never closed. And he had heard, so softly, “—find him, then it’s too late. Give up, Jin—” and Beauty had sprung away from the door, knowing he had heard something not meant for his ears.

He never does tell the Writer about his book.)

Beauty sets his feet on the path nearest the eastern wall. He traces its length, stepping ever-eastward when presented with branching routes.

He has recently read a story, of a woman who must escape her captor’s castle. She does so by following the right wall of a maze he traps her inside. She finds the heart of the maze and the heart of the castle—literally, for there is a gazebo and upon its tea table sits a beating heart. She smashes the heart beneath her heel, and the entire castle collapses around her. The man dies, for love of her, and she escapes, because she belongs to only herself.

It is not a kind story, and the Writer had frowned when Beauty enthusiastically discussed the symbolism at play.

Beauty recalls her cunning and is rewarded with a gate.

**33.**

(Beauty never thinks to wonder what the gate symbolizes.)

**34.**

It sits embedded in the stone wall. It is like a door in shape and apparent purpose. It possesses a handle and a latch. But the handle is rusted over and the hinges are choked with those curling creepers that scatter down the length of the wall.

It is old, impressively so. Beauty knows he should be able to simply push through the door, because it is old and wood rots when bombarded with the elements. Or it is gone soft with termites. But when he presses his hand to the door, he finds it reinforced with iron bands and the wood beneath his hand is as hard as granite. He knocks his knuckle against it, and the sound is strong and youthful.

He steps back, perplexed, because its appearance suggests it is more than a thousand years old. Its sturdiness assures him it is as young as he.

**35.**

He throws his weight against it once, because no one is watching.

All he gets for his troubles is the knowledge that it repels him effortlessly and the side of his body bruised up and feeling battered.

He tugs at the handle, tries to break through using pure strength. It chafes at his hand, and he pulls it away before the rust bites too deeply into his hand.

(He remembers something about lockjaw, even though he does not think he has ever seen it mentioned in his books.)

**36.**

He tries other ways of opening the gate.

He clears out the creepers that cluster around the hinges and then tears them away entirely from the door. He picks at the rust with a stone, taken from off the path. He tries to leverage a fallen branch through the handle and only succeeds in flying backwards when it snaps resolutely.

He retraces his steps when he is rumpled and sweaty. It is not retreat. It is a tactical withdrawal.

**37.**

He returns the next day, armed with salt and freshly-squeezed lemon juice.

He rubs as much salt as he can over the handle and then dumps the entire bowl of lemon juice atop it. Most of it splashes to the ground, but some of it remains. He hopes this is enough, because he had no true way of keeping it submerged.

He knows the acid will eat through the oxidation. But he also knows it’s an infinitely slow process.

Beauty frowns over what he’s done and resolves to return.

**38.**

Beauty is still awake when the moon crests high in the sky that night. He is curled up in bed but sleep is slow in coming.

He thinks of the gate and what lies beyond. He knows of the Thousand Woods, of how the Writer warns of the many dangers they contain. “There is a reason the walls are so high,” he has said, but Beauty wonders.

The Cat leaps upon his bed with a soft _Mrrp_ to announce its arrival. Beauty opens his arms, and the creature (a suggestion of an outline in the dark of the room) crawls into the hollow they make. It rumbles out another sound, and he looks down into yellow eyes that say, _I know what you are doing_.

They stare at each other. (Beauty’s eyes are like dark glass.)

“Oh, Eunwoo,” the Cat says at last.

**XX.**

They all had names, once upon a time. But perhaps he was always the most resistant to the separating of name and body. He cared too much for the knowing, always looked deeper than was expected.

He seeks out what he has lost without knowing he has lost it.

**39.**

“Eunwoo?” Beauty echoes.

It is not a name familiar to him. But it _tastes_ nostalgic. It does not bring bile but rather bitterness, a lingering sweetness that ghosts across his tongue.

The Cat is silent for a moment before it explains, “Beauty in another language. A better name, in my opinion.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Beauty says.

Cats cannot smile, but the creature does an approximation: it spreads its whiskers, crinkles the corners of its eyes, and reveals just a bit of tooth. It's entirely mocking.

“You wouldn’t have,” the Cat says. “It’s the Writer’s native language. He isn’t fond of having it recalled.”

“Why?”

The Cat hesitates—and this is strange, because the Cat delights in usurping the Writer’s rule. Small rebellions, born in the dark of night. But at last the Cat answers, “It’s part of a past he cannot return to, no matter how much he tries.”

Beauty has never seen the Writer struggle with anything. His smile does not reach his eyes, but he is kind and gentle and rules with a soft hand.

He does not like to think of the Writer quietly suffering. He thinks it is something like love, though his only experience with it comes from books.

**40.**

(When he is older, he recognizes exactly what his love was.)

**41.**

(He thinks poison must taste much the same. ~~He still cries for the Writer when he is alone.~~ )

**42.**

Beauty says, “If I could help him—” and he does not know _how_ but he thinks he must try, to see the Writer smile properly.

The Cat does not allow him further contemplation. It shakes its head, ears laid flat to its head. “No,” it says, so strongly that Beauty almost draws away. “No,” it repeats more gently. “You must open the—.”

Its mouth opens and closes, tongue curling like a snake. No words follow; it shakes its head again. Beauty recognizes frustration, but he knows not what has caught the Cat’s voice.

Finally, it says, “Just go into the garden again. I’ll give you what you need.” 

**43.**

The next day, Beauty follows the now-familiar path to the garden gate armed with a wire brush and a hammer. Both have come from the servants, handed over quietly before he passed through their quarters and into the garden.

He hopes he will not need the hammer. It hangs awkwardly from his hand, its weight unwieldy.

When he first comes near the gate, he is overcome with a surge of disappoint: the handle appears unchanged.

But as he sets the brush to it, begins to scrape across the metal, he finds the rust sloughs off. It does not come quietly, and in places the lemon-salt mixture could not reach, Beauty has to scrub with his shoulder thrown into it. But it comes. Slowly, with work.

He works until his muscles burn, and then he sets the brush aside and tries the handle. It gives—but only so far. It means the rust has reached deeper.

Beauty looks toward the hammer and set his jaw for the task ahead.

**44.**

He doesn’t want to destroy the gate. It is a part of the Writer’s garden. He considers going back. It will require another day’s work, but he can try to create a paste. Or he can give up on the gate entirely. It is surely more trouble than it is worth.

(Despite his internal thoughts, he still picks up the hammer. He still lines it up with a spot just above the handle. It will break the internal latch. It will render the gate basically useless.)

**45.**

He throws his whole body into the swing.

**46.**

Beauty feels the door buckle. He feels the latch snap. He feels the handle go loose and useless. And he feels the rebound, where the hammer strikes the wood and force ricochets back up his arm.

He practically throws the hammer away, and it skitters and screams across the cobblestone path that first led him to the gate.

Silence fills up the space left behind, and Beauty shakily places his hand on the door.

**47.**

It opens.

**48.**

What lies beyond the gate is almost exactly what lies before it. There is still a cobblestone path. There is still a great growth of plants, curling over each other like lovers long lost but at last reunited.

But the trail only stretches so far before it falls to scattered stone and then gives way to dirt. And beyond the carefully-selected trees, Beauty can see pines that stretch out-of-sight, a forest floor that looks untouched by human hands.

He shivers, overcome with a sudden chill—compared to the sunlit paths of the garden, the world beyond the gate looks quietly unsettling.

When he steps through, nausea plummets into his stomach.

His gut rolls, even as he forces himself forward. He moves on legs that feel set to collapse at any moment. His mouth goes so dry he swallows repeatedly.

The forest breathes around him, and each foreign sound makes him flinch like he’s been struck.

**49.**

His heart hammers, practically bounding up his throat, and he has never felt more alive.

**50.**

He spooks when something howling winds through the trees.

Beauty is suddenly reminded of the Writer’s warnings: bears, wolves, bandits. Something more terrible than any of them—he flees back through the gate and uses the external latch to hold it closed.

He snatches up the wire brush and the hammer and retreats to the manse.

**51.**

The Writer speaks to him over dinner that night. (The Cat is conspicuously absent.)

Beauty cannot keep himself fully under control. His eyes dart, desperate to find the Cat so that he might hold it and calm his fluttering heart.

They are sat in the Writer’s personal study, at the little table that had been set up specifically so that they might sup in a quieter, more intimate setting. The salmon is cooked so tender it falls from its skin—and Beauty is grateful, because he thinks the scales might fleck his throat.

Like becoming a mermaid. 

(His thoughts come faster than he can understand them. He wishes the Cat would show, especially with the salmon cooked so well. He knows it holds an aversion to raw fish.)

“No Cat tonight,” the Writer says. He says it in a friendly way, his head idly leant upon his hand.

Beauty sees that the script that covers his skin has spread farther, reaches higher. The black language curls around the base of his neck like a collar. He flicks his eyes upward and asks, “Why not? Is it sick?”

“Nothing like that,” the Writer says, still warm.

Beauty can feel himself calming. For once, the Writer’s eyes carry his smile. (They are not quite full crescents, though.)

“I sent him away for a while,” the Writer continues.

He regards the window that sits behind his desk; Beauty follows his gaze and sees a swath of trees, indistinct in the dying light of the day. He recognizes it as the forest, which means that the garden must also be viewable from the Writer’s window. Beauty wonders if the Writer always watches him.

It emboldens him a little. If the Writer watches and does not intervene, then surely the Writer’s warnings are only out of concern for Beauty. He will not be punished.

“When will it be back?” Beauty asks. He feels better now; the fish rests more easily in his stomach.

The Writer’s lips push out, as if he’s taken the question between his teeth.

(Beauty thinks he would be a gentle dog. One with a soft mouth.)

“Hard to tell,” the Writer says at last. “Don’t worry, Beauty. I promise it won’t be for long.”

**52.**

They spend the rest of the dinner discussing what animals they might be, if they were to become one.

(The Writer, mouth slipped sideways, knowingly casts Beauty in the role of a cow.)

**XX.**

What is the difference between domesticity and captivity?

Those animals humans domesticated entered into a willing partnership with humans. It is built upon a foundation of equality, though this truth has fallen away with time.

Those that humans simply caught were never seen as anything approaching equal.

**53.**

The world beyond the gate is vast.

Beauty explores a little further each day. He marks his trail with flat white stones pilfered from the garden. He carries the hammer, and its heavy weight becomes a comfort in his hand.

He does not go beyond the garden on days that follow nights filled with howling.

But he cannot stay away, despite the danger. The Writer says nothing on the days he returns wide-eyed and watchful.

**54.**

In the forest he tastes wild-born berries for the first time. Each one bursts in his mouth, and he delights in how they stain his fingers. (If the Cat were near, Beauty might spread the juice upon his throat and call himself the Writer.)

In the forest he spies a deer snow-white and so shy he only catches a glimpse of its kicking heels as it flees his company. He wonders the rest of the day if it was actually a unicorn and regrets that he did not see its head.

In the forest he meets a crow that speaks danger. It asks him if he is happy.

**55.**

He meets it when he is retracing his steps, picking up each stone that leads back to the garden with the same patience he shows whenever he heads home.

He doesn’t even realize it is following him at first. It alights on the ground behind him. It hops after him, its quiet thumps completely deadened by the loamy soil beneath its talons.

He only looks back when a twig snaps, and he finds himself reflected in a single black eye. It looks like a marble, like it’s made of harder stuff than his soft doll eyes.

(Like dark glass, the Writer says.)

**56.**

“Eunwoo,” it says.

**57.**

“You know me?”

The question escapes his mouth before he can begin to formulate his thoughts. He is not surprised that the crow can talk. He knows better than to question it, when he is so new to the world and so very ignorant of it.

(And yet, he still thinks this is not right. This is not the way of things. This is not a voice that should spill from a wicked black beak.)

It tilts its head at the question and barks out a croaking laugh. Its feathers run blue-black, even shadowed by the trees overhead. Its visage is sharp and contained—and Beauty thinks there is nothing surprising in how put together it is.

He wonders why it does not toss its head.

“Knew, Eunwoo,” it corrects. It hops a step closer, apparently unsatisfied with walking.

“Beauty, actually,” he cannot help but answer. He does not like the snooty tone it takes, but he clamps down on the inclination to tug at its tail feathers. The Cat told him to look beyond the gate—and the Cat and the Crow are nearly alike in their carriage.

(Old and aggrieved, but where the Cat ignored its constant underlying anger, the Crow revels in it.)

“Of course he calls you that.” The Crow snorts and then draws its head back to throw out another mocking laugh that sounds harsh and heavy in the empty air.

Beauty thinks that he must return home soon, that the Writer must even now be watching the trees that stretch beyond the garden, wondering when his Beauty will step through the gate.

But he stays, because even though the Crow seems cruel, it also seems—sad. And that melancholy claws at Beauty’s throat, drawing it tight and painful. He wants to help.

(He always wants to help. He must learn to help himself first.)

“The Writer?” he guesses, and he holds his arm out: a mimicry of the position a falconer takes. His sleeves are thin, but the Crow is nowhere near the size of the hawks detailed in the book he read. He thinks that if the talons cut through, they will not hurt so badly as to make him regret his offering.

The Crow tilts it head and, after a brief consideration, launches itself into the air and flutters up onto his arm.

**58.**

He is wrong again. The claws cut through his shirt, and he carries the scars scratched into his skin for days afterward.

It is the most human he has ever felt, to track how his flesh heals in the days that follow.

**59.**

The Crow’s weight upon his arm is noticeable, but not so great that he experiences any immediate discomfort.

But it remains on his arm for only a few seconds longer, shuffling to control its balance, before it migrates north. It ends up on his shoulder, so near that he can only see its black beak and its black eye.

He knows that it could peck his eye out if it so wished. He also knows that it won’t. Whoever its ire is directed toward, it is not him. And that is enough.

**60.**

“When did you get so brave?” it asks, and its voice sounds wistful, so close to his ear.

He wonders if this is really bravery but only comments, “I’ve always been this way,” as he continues back toward the garden, now many stones heavier with the bird upon his shoulder. He does not stop to pick up the rocks anymore.

Beauty knows that he has found what he sought within the forest.

**61.**

“The Cat told me to find you,” he says when the conversation stalls.

It is not entirely true, for the Cat never spoke of a bird. But Beauty thinks it must be true enough, for the Crow grinds its beak and dips down to wipe the tip on Beauty’s shirt.

“Not in so many words,” it says, “but since it’s you, it didn’t matter.”

It falls silent again, and Beauty is just beginning to think of what to say next, what to ask next, when it asks, “How bad is the Writer’s curse now?”

“Curse?” Beauty echoes, frightened and confused—and then he remembers the black script that curls up the Writer’s chest, that wraps a black-fingered hand around his throat.

“You’ve seen it,” the Crow says. “The last time I saw it, it was about the size of your palm, centered on his heart.”

Beauty’s own heart hammers at this information. Compared to the Writer he knows—he sucks in a breath through clenched teeth and answers, “It’s grown. A lot.”

His mouth is dry; he swallows, trying to relieve the sensation, and finishes, “It’s around his neck now. Not all the way, but—it’s moving upward.”

“He’s a fool,” the bird says. What sharpness it held before has dulled into a wearied acceptance. It combs its beak through his hair, and Beauty shivers from the contact. “Always has been.”

Beauty doesn’t know what to say to that simple statement.

**62.**

They return to the gate before they speak again.

Beauty almost thinks they will simply pass through, but as they draw nearer he feels the Crow’s feet tighten upon his shoulder, the claws once more scouring thin lines into his flesh.

He pauses in his journey, and the Crow leaves his shoulder, returning to the ground. It does not fly away, as he thought it would. Instead, it peers up at him, and he recognizes that it is willing to speak once more.

He crouches down to be polite.

“Are you happy here?” the Crow asks. Its voice is hesitant, soft—completely at odds with its previous manner.

Beauty is surprised when he cannot immediately answer.

**63.**

He recognizes that the answer should be easy. He possesses a life equal to any king’s. Greater, he thinks, for he does not fear an invasion, does not suffer the indignity of disloyal followers. He knows the Writer loves him unconditionally. He has a constant companion in the Cat. The servants of the castle attend to his every whim, and he never hungers or faces boredom.

But is all of that happiness?

It feels as thin as a page drawn from a book.

He bites his lip, conflicted on how best to answer.

**64.**

“I’ll be back,” the Crow says when his response does not come. It tilts its head again and says quite sadly, “I’ll keep coming back until you can answer me.”

Then it finally, finally leaves. It soars upward, towards the top of the trees. Beauty watches its journey until shadows obscure it, and then he finally steps through the gate. He closes it behind him but does not quite latch it.

**65.**

He mulls over the Crow’s question until he is called for dinner.

**66.**

The Writer has wine served that night, and the pair retire to Beauty’s room to finish off the bottle once they’ve taken their fill of the food.

They sit side by side on Beauty’s bed. He knows the Writer could sit at the desk. Or they could sit in the room just outside, the one especially made for him to receive visitors in.

( _What visitors?_ he wonders suddenly, for there is only ever the Writer and the servants and the Cat. And now there is not even the Cat.)

He takes a larger gulp of wine.

Its warmth spreads out from his belly, and he thinks of the black marks that cover the Writer’s body. He’s never seen the whole of them: though the Writer wears tunics with necklines that dive to his navel, he never fully exposes his torso.

**XX.**

He knows so much, but he knows so little. The Cat calls it “Schrödinger”, because it was never a diligent student. A soul isn’t so easily changed.

It’s black and white. Life and death. But it’s harder to understand when you’re the one inside the box.

(We don’t ask the cat what it is.)

**67.**

“Are you happy, Writer?” he asks. He feels flushed with wine, and he only absently notes the way the Writer carefully separates him from his glass. The Writer takes it all the way to the desk before returning to Beauty’s side, his mouth curling wide.

(His eyes still don’t smile, Beauty notes.)

“You drank too much, Beauty,” he scolds gently. But he continues to smile, and when Beauty reaches clumsily for his hand, he threads their fingers together. He squeezes Beauty’s hand before answering: “Yes, I’m happy. What brought this on?”

“Why are you happy?”

The Writer only quirks his lips when his own question is brushed aside. He gives Beauty’s hand another, harder squeeze. Beauty leans toward him, because he can, and abruptly finds himself resting on the Writer, his chest heavy on the Writer’s arm, his head a firm pressure on the Writer’s shoulder.

(Like the Crow, Beauty thinks. He has to bite back a giggle at the notion.)

“Let’s see,” the Writer says. He hums a bit, as he considers, and Beauty closes his eyes.

Beauty floats in a sea of darkness, only connected to consciousness by the Writer’s low voice. He says, “Because you’re here. The Cat is here. We have this beautiful house, this peaceful life. Isn’t that what everyone wants?”

“But there’s only us,” Beauty murmurs sleepily. (It is not bravery. It is drowsiness and alcohol—and the fact that he is Beauty, and the Writer can never punish him. Their bond is engraved on their bones.)

He is aware that the Writer stiffens beneath him. But he keeps his eyes closed and only hears the Writer say, slowly, “Well—we’ll hopefully have someone else joining us soon. And the Cat will be back. I promise.”

“That would be nice.”

“Mm,” the Writer hums his agreement. Then he is moving, and Beauty is moving: he recognizes that he is being pushed down, repositioned into an arrangement necessary for sleep. He feels his head touch his pillow and almost immediately sinks into it.

“But you are happy, aren’t you, Beauty?”

Beauty never answers, claimed by a darkness that is warm and nostalgic.

**68.**

The Cat returns a few days later.

It’s the Crow that alerts Beauty to its return. It alights upon his shoulder almost as soon as he has stepped fully through the door. It tugs at his ear and squawks in his ear, “The Cat’s back, why are you _here_?”

He doesn’t even question how it knows, only offers a swift apology for having to leave just as he had arrived (and earning another hard tweak of his ear), and then rushes back through the gate. The Crow jumps off his shoulder before he has even turned back.

It watches him go, feathers ruffled.

**69.**

Beauty finds the Cat in the main hall of the ground floor. He hurries past two maids and the Keeper, who scolds at him not to track dirt onto the freshly-swept floors. He apologizes, something short and half-hearted, and continues on.

The Cat is an obvious smudge of black against the grand majesty of the front entrance, and it is especially conspicuous with its fur clumped and its eyes wide. It does not protest as he sweeps it up into his arms, but neither does it return his overt affection with its own. It does not butt its head against his, nor does it nuzzle into his neck, nor does it lick at his fingers.

It sits like a lump in his hands, and he checks worryingly over it. “Cat?” he asks, suddenly terrified it is somehow injured.

But then the Writer is there, his hands strong and steady as he plucks the Cat from Beauty’s grip. Beauty resists the urge to fight for it; the Writer will know what is wrong.

The Writer only offers him a small smile, something helpless, and says, “Sorry, Beauty,” before he starts up the stairs. 

**70.**

Beauty eats dinner alone that night and paces through his quarters until his legs ache. He tugs worryingly at his hair but ultimately retires to his bed when sleep begins to dog his footsteps.

He is staring at the canopy when the Cat joins him. Its weight is a sudden, soft dip by his feet, and he spies its golden eyes (almost molten in the moonlight) as it pads toward him.

“Cat?” he asks, brow furrowed. It’s an echo of his earlier query, but this time the Cat responds.

“I’m so tired, Beauty,” it admits, crawling into the open space between his arms. He lifts the blanket up, just enough that it can press closer to his chest. When its body touches his, he feels it shivering.

He hesitates before asking, “What happened?”

But his question goes unanswered. Instead, the Cat tips its head to stare fully into his eyes and asks, “Did you go—where I told you to?”

“Yes,” Beauty answers softly. “I met the Crow. He called me ‘Eunwoo’.”

The Cat flinches, like it’s been struck. But tension eases out of its shoulders as it settles once more against him. “Good,” it murmurs, voice muffling as it rests its chin on a curled paw. “That was all I wanted.”

“What happened, Cat?”

The Cat sighs and nuzzles against Beauty’s side. “I wish I could tell you,” it says. “But the Crow can. Ask him his name, the next time you see him.”

“Does the Writer know?” Beauty knows it’s a dangerous question. But he’s—scared?—that the Writer doesn’t just know. He doesn’t want the Writer to be responsible, but it feels more and more like the entire world is wrong. And the Writer has always been at the center of his world.

“The Writer knows everything,” the Cat says.

**71.**

(His dissension never left. It has grown, fed by the growing doubt that festers in the depths of his heart. It is like a fire, threatening to consume everything, and he doesn’t know how to put it out.)

**72.**

The next day, the Cat throws itself from the balcony.

**73.**

When Beauty awakens that morning, he finds the Cat stood beside the door that leads out onto his personal veranda.

“Do you want to go out?” he asks it. He rubs the sleep from his eye, squinting against the sunlight that spills across his bed.

The Cat flicks its tail and swivels its head to regard him. They stare at each other for a heartbeat before the Cat looks back toward the door, reaching forward to place a paw against it. “Yes,” it says.

“All right,” Beauty says. He rises and stretches, working the stiffness out of his joints as he joins the Cat. He undoes the lock and swings the door open. “There,” he tells it. “I guess you won’t be coming to breakfast?”

He thinks it doesn’t want to see the Writer. (Truthfully, he doesn’t either. But he also does. It’s a contradiction that claws at his stomach and turns his palms clammy.)

“Probably not,” it says. The Cat sounds tired, but it still manages to wrinkle its muzzle into something like a smile. Beauty smiles back as the Cat walks outside.

He leaves the door ajar; it isn’t a good habit, but the sky is absent of rainclouds, and he knows a servant will eventually close it when they come in to straighten up his room.

He heads downstairs once he’s gone through his morning routine. He takes a light breakfast with the Writer out on the front lawn. They are attended to by a number of staff who serve them quickly but inconspicuously.

Beauty has crossed one leg over the other and nibbles delicately at a biscuit. He tells the Writer with a small smile (because when the Writer smiles back, he feels _right_ , and the Crow and the Cat are faraway ghosts) about a story he has recently read.

It is a love story, because he has become fascinated with them of late. It stems from a quote he came upon, that stated that the romance novel was the most difficult to perfect for it relied entirely upon a relationship built between people. It is easy enough to stash a story of love between the pages of an action thriller or a gut-wrenching mystery. It requires finesse and craftsmanship most cannot claim, to draw a story of any great depth from the folds of a commonplace romance.

But the story Beauty relates comes close, in his opinion. It is filled with gardens and flowers and a white-fenced gazebo that the main characters have their first meeting and their final parting in. It is a bittersweet tale, and the Writer snorts and asks quietly (amused and irritated in equal amounts), “Is it really such a good story? When it ends so sadly?”

“But it’s real,” Beauty argues. “I think there’s something wonderful in that. They don’t all have to be sad. But it’s bad if they all end neatly, too.”

“Why is that?” the Writer asks.

**74.**

The Cat falls.

**75.**

(Later, it will admit that it jumped. But whether it jumped of its own volition or whether the Writer pushed it toward it—well, Beauty thinks both answers hold some truth.)

**76.**

The servants scream. Beauty gapes, all the breath sucked out of him. He gasps, wheezes brokenly, to see how the cat’s body lies twisted in the grass. It curls upon itself in death, and he only realizes he has risen from his chair when the Writer catches his wrist.

(The Writer is the only one who is calm.)

“Wait,” he commands. His grip tightens, and Beauty cannot throw him off. 

“The Cat—!” he half-shouts at last, having found his voice again. It comes out ragged and torn, ripped to shreds by the razors that have embedded in the back of his throat. Tears prick at his eyes, and Beauty pulls again, trying to escape the Writer’s hold.

“Wait.” The command is softer but no less powerful.

Beauty stills, rebellion thrumming through his veins. He looks toward the Cat, hoping for a miracle—but it does not move, lies as if someone has caught its limbs and wrung it like a towel.

He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to say, _My best friend just died!_ —and something grips his heart so tightly he gasps out a sob of pain.

**77.**

He doesn’t dare to hope when the Cat’s body begins to twitch. They are small tremors, barely noticeable. A few servants step closer, leaning down, hands hovering over the small body.

“Don’t touch him!” the Writer snaps.

They all spring back, as if burned, and the Writer continues, “Just wait. Watch.”

And Beauty can do nothing else, his heart hammering in his throat.

The Cat jerks more violently.

**78.**

Later, in the telling of his story, Beauty always pauses here. There is a palpable discomfort in the air that surrounds him. He is sparse in the details, though he is willing to expound upon anything else when asked.

 _There are some things_ , he tells Minhyuk one night, when they are curled up together and the darkness has chased away the last of his demons, _that can’t be explained. It’s a sort of magic. Like a curse, I think._

(The Cat never speaks on it either.)

**79.**

The Cat strips its own skin from its body.

The Cat takes hold of its limbs and stretches them long. (And the skin regrows, pale and furless, smooth and thin.)

The Cat eats the flesh it discards and wobbles on what were once hind legs but are now human legs. It stumbles in the grass and drops to its knees. Its head bows, and it draws great, gulping breaths.

(Beauty wonders if this is what true birth is like. If it is something so terrible and so strange and so miraculous as this.)

**80.**

Miracles are not always good.

**81.**

“Fetch him clothes, please,” the Writer says, the only one unaffected by the cat-man-thing curled upon the ground.

The servants that hover near scatter in the direction of the mansion. Beauty is only faintly aware of their passing; his eyes remain pinned to the Cat.

Its shoulders spread as wide as the moon. Its hair is as black as night and tumbles just as smoothly down the nape of its neck.

Beauty thinks, _I know you_.

The name does not touch his tongue, no matter how desperately he tries to bring it forward.

**82.**

The first servant returns carrying a towel, and he delicately settles it around the Cat’s shoulders, hiding its (his) nude flesh mostly from view.

Others follow, though they come more slowly.

Beauty only realizes the Writer has finally released him when the Writer steps past him and toward the Cat.

He kneels beside the Cat and catches its chin with the tips of his fingers. Beauty hears him say, so softly, “You’ll bring him back, won’t you?” The Cat’s eyes are black pinpricks in the white of its face, its lips barely parted. Beauty does not hear it speak, but the Writer straightens back up, looking satisfied.

He returns to Beauty and places his hands delicately on Beauty’s shoulders. “Come on,” he says, “we should really give him some privacy.”

**83.**

Beauty finds the Cat later, curled up in the library, a book in his hand, and his gaze directed out the window he sits beside.

(They all long for freedom. Even the Writer.)

He is still human, still tall, still broad. Beauty has always thought the Writer sturdy, but the Cat reminds him of an oak. He thinks the body doesn’t quite fit something that was once small and fragile.

**84.**

“Cat?” he asks, half-shielded by a bookcase. It isn’t that he fears the Cat, but his shape is not the only thing that has changed. Something inside of Beauty has broken.

When the Cat throws him a look of intermixed longing and sorrow, Beauty finds himself edging clear of the bookcase, removing the barrier that separates them.

“What?” the Cat answers.

Beauty has never considered how perfect the Cat’s voice was, how lacking in depth and texture it was. But when the Cat speaks now, as a human, he sounds raw and scratchy: a voice that bleeds hurt, and all Beauty can think is, _Oh, he’s human_. It comes with a wonder that fills him up completely and threatens to overflow, pushing at the backs of his eyes.

(He doesn’t know if he wants to cry for the Cat or himself.)

“We’re not happy here,” he says.

The Cat’s smile is bitter as he tilts his head down and mutters softly, “But what can we do?”

Beauty doesn’t have an answer for that.

**85.**

The Cat departs later. He goes clothed as a human, astride a horse drawn from the stables that have seemingly sprung up overnight.

Beauty doesn’t remember them ever being there before, stood near the gate that leads into the estate. He asks a few of the servants, wondering if he was just somehow blind to their previous presence. (He swears they were never there before. Not that morning, surely, when he sat with the Writer.)

The staff all agree they have always been there. One politely asks if he would like a cup of tea.

Beauty watches the Cat leave, stood on the lawn with the Writer. He does not stand close to the Writer.

The Writer doesn’t seem to mind. The only words they exchange for the rest of the day is when Beauty asks, stiffly, where the Cat has gone.

“To get you a friend,” the Writer says. He smiles wider, flashes teeth that remind Beauty of the wolves that sup upon grandmothers and strip little girls to their bones. “You wanted one.”

**XX.**

Dogs and wolves share 99% of the same DNA. They are capable of interbreeding. As puppies, they are nearly indistinguishable in their joy toward humans. But make no mistake: a wolf is not a dog. Sooner or later, a wolf will outgrow you. And they have a _much_ stronger bite.

**86.**

Beauty doesn’t have a chance to finally tell the Crow his answer.

It flutters down to meet him as soon as he steps beyond the garden gate, its plumage ruffled. “The Cat left again,” it says, accusatory enough that Beauty finds himself bristling.

(He’ll regret it later. But the farther he’s pushed, the more some long-buried temper rears its head. He’s _so tired_ of knowing nothing, of having nothing in control. Everything has spun so far beyond him that he feels like a nameless background character, unable to even begin to see the solutions that come so easily to the protagonist.

 _A pretty face,_ he’ll tell his mirror later. _The kind that dies first, to make a point._ )

“What do you want me to do?” he asks it. “The Writer is its owner, not me!”

The Crow squawks at his use of the word “owner”.

“ _He is not_ ,” it hisses back, sounding more snake than avian. “Bin—the Cat—isn’t something to be owned!”

“Tell him that, because he doesn’t refuse,” Beauty snaps back. He wants to cry. He pours everything he has into his anger, fanning the flames higher and higher. It feels safer than letting the tears gutter out his fire.

“He can’t! Oh, go back to your Writer, Eunwoo. You’re useless like this.”

 _Eunwoo_ —again that name, and instead of pleasantly flipping his stomach, all he tastes is stomach acid creeping up his throat. He swallows hard, clenching his fists at his sides, and stares the bird down.

“Don’t call me that,” he grinds out. Never mind nausea, there are rocks in his mouth. He wants to spit blood at the bird, show it how much this understanding has cost him. He feels like he’s been poked full of holes.

( _Innocence isn’t stripped like skin from meat,_ he thinks. _It forces its way out from the inside, driven by all the knowledge we accumulate._ )

His breathing is harsh as he says, “You all tell me enough just to hurt me. But you won’t tell me how to get out.”

The Crow has turned its head, refusing to meet his eyes. It stares hard at the treeline and says softly, “You think this hurts? If this is too much for you, then there is no escape.”

When it finally looks toward him, it is only to dip its head in a stiff bow. It rises up and takes flight without another word.

Beauty doesn’t watch it leave, only turns back to the garden gate.

He sleeps without supper that night, his stomach uncomfortably full of despair.

**87.**

He goes to the Writer the next day.

He kneels and begs, “Just make me forget. Not everything, but just enough.”

(And if pain flares in the Writer’s eyes, Beauty pretends not to see.)

There is nothing of the wolf here; it has gone away with the Cat, chasing after a prize too valuable to let escape. The Writer’s hand is terribly gentle as he cups Beauty’s face. He almost wishes the Writer would strike him instead.

“Oh, Beauty,” the Writer says.

He leans down and brushes his lips against Beauty’s forehead.

**88.**

He doesn’t forget anything. But the Writer takes something away.

Beauty spends his time in the library, curled up beside his favorite window. He visits the Writer more frequently and begs to be taught how to ballroom dance. They idle away their days with tea on the front lawn, book club in the Writer’s room, lessons in the ballroom. Beauty takes up insect collecting, but he never ventures far into the garden.

He knows the gate is there. He knows the Crow waits beyond.

But he laughs at himself, when he remembers how much he used to fuss.

 _How silly_ , he thinks as he makes note of a particularly clever passage. He’ll show the book to the Writer later and highlight how snappy the prose is. _Why did I care so much?_

He feels content.

**89.**

The Cat returns with a young man from a nearby village.

He introduces himself as Minhyuk.

“A friend,” the Writer says with a smile toward Beauty, as they look down from the second-floor.

Beauty smiles back and asks, “Do you think he likes books?”

**90.**

Minhyuk is excited, to have been personally invited by the lord of the lands. Excited—and apprehensive, because the lord is so reclusive. No one has seen him since some twenty years ago.

He asks Beauty, after they have dined with the Writer, whether the lord is especially shy.

“No,” Beauty answers, surprised by the question. He had thought the Writer quite forward, in truth. He had been the first to greet Minhyuk and the Cat as they entered the estate, after all. He leads Minhyuk through the eastern wing; he knows which room the young man has been set up in, and the Cat had business with the Writer.

“It’s just, I didn’t see him at dinner,” Minhyuk says. “Or is he the type to dine by himself?”

“What?” Beauty pauses at the door to Minhyuk’s quarters. The door isn’t locked, but he fiddles with the handle as he turns to regard Minhyuk. “No, you saw him. He and the Cat left before us, remember?”

Minhyuk’s eyes go wide and his mouth slackens. “ _That_ was the lord? But I thought him his son, or his grandson. He can’t be the Writer; the elder said when he last visited he was a young man and that was—”

“Twenty years ago?” Beauty asks. He isn’t quite sure what has so rattled Minhyuk. The man does seem prone to theatrics, despite his normally solemn countenance. It’s a refreshing dichotomy. “Is it that strange?”

“He looks like a young man!” Minhyuk twists his mouth and crosses his arms. “Next you’ll tell me _you’re_ secretly five-hundred years old.”

Beauty laughs. He pushes open the door to Minhyuk’s quarters and ushers him inside, wearing a smile. “No, definitely not. You and I must be about the same age, I think.”

“That’s reassuring to hear,” Minhyuk says and winks. “Wouldn’t want to hear you’re too old for me.”

Beauty laughs again, harder, and this time Minhyuk laughs with him. It sounds unrefined, tumbling and warm, and Beauty decides he likes it.

**91.**

“I’m amazed your produce grows so well.”

They’re all in the garden, watching Minhyuk enthuse over each new vegetable or root or fruit he comes across. He has offered to cook for them, before he returns to his village, and while the Writer has invited him to stay for a week or more, Minhyuk wants to start collecting ingredients now.

According to him, kimchi takes a while to ferment, so it’s best to prepare that ahead of time.

Beauty walks with him, carrying a crate that already holds several napa cabbages. They’re not going deep into the garden, and Beauty can see the Writer and the Cat watching them from near its entrance. The Cat sits on an overturned milk carton, plucking honeysuckle from its vines and sucking at the sweet nectar that sits inside each bloom. The Writer leans against the stone wall, looking relaxed.

“It does well,” Beauty agrees. He hefts the crate, resettling his grip when Minhyuk deposits a few carrots inside, soil clinging in stubborn clumps to their skin.

“You don’t see most of these in season together,” Minhyuk continues. He crouches down to examine a few flowers that intertwine. “You can eat these,” he proclaims but doesn’t bother to collect them. “It’s just strange, really. Most stuff doesn’t want to share space. And even if you find plants that don’t mind, they end up leeching all the nutrients from the soil and something ends up undersized or bad quality. But everything thrives here.”

Beauty hums a noncommittal response. He doesn’t know enough about gardens; they don’t come up often in the books he reads. He resolves to open up some of the farmers’ almanacs later, if only so he can finally identify what some of the plants are.

Minhyuk doesn’t seem to mind that Beauty is barely present in the conversation. He continues on without stopping, “The weather here is different, though. I wonder if the soil quality is different from back home? Do you think the Writer would mind if I collected a sample?”

“No,” Beauty says, wearing a helpless smile.

Minhyuk looks up at him with a smile of his own, pauses, then abruptly stands up. “Wait, here. Let me hold that. It must be getting heavy.”

“I can hold it,” Beauty protests, but then Minhyuk’s hands brush against his, and the shock of warmth (compared to the Writer’s cool palms, the Cat’s fur, the Crow’s scaly feet) is enough to make him relinquish his grip.

“I’m not weak,” he says, placing his thumb over where Minhyuk’s finger pressed into his skin. 

Minhyuk answers with a brilliant smile. “We’re sharing,” he answers. “It’s only fair we take turns carrying it. I’ll tell you what to grab.”

“Fine,” Beauty mumbles, pink coloring his cheeks.

**92.**

“He’s handsome,” Beauty idly tells the Cat.

They’re watching Minhyuk take a pair of pruning shears to the fruit trees that dot the garden. It isn’t a hot day, but his white shirt has soaked through with sweat. Beauty watches the swell and fall of his back muscles and finds himself marveling aloud.

The Cat isn’t as impressed.

“You’ve got your own abs,” he tells Beauty. “You can probably deadlift him. Well, no,” he reconsiders, squinting against the sun. “ _I_ can. You care too much about books.”

“Books are heavy,” Beauty argues back. He can’t take his eyes off Minhyuk. As if he feels Beauty’s gaze, the young man twists on the ladder, releasing the shears with one hand to wave at Beauty. He smiles and waves back. “You can kill a man with a book.”

“That doesn’t make them special,” the Cat answers. Sounding gloomy, he says, “Lots of things can kill a man.”

(The Cat as a man is different from the Cat as, well, a cat. He’s less acidic, less likely to flagrantly defy the rules. He’s as passive-aggressive as ever, but his words lack their previous bite.

Beauty doesn’t wonder whether the Writer had a hand in it.)

“He calls you Bin,” Beauty says, changing the subject. “Why is that?”

(He thinks the Crow did, once, a long time ago.)

“That’s my name,” the Cat says. He rolls his eyes in Beauty’s direction, his expression so similar to his former feline face that Beauty feels his lips quirk up. “Did you really think it was Cat?”

Beauty raises one shoulder in a half-shrug. “That’s what the Writer called you.” He considers what this new information means and asks, “Does that mean his name isn’t Writer?”

The Cat—Bin—huffs a sigh. “No, it’s his name,” he says. “He just used to have a different one. We all did.”

“Well,” Beauty says, “I like my name.” (It doesn’t make his stomach flip.)

“Only because Minhyuk calls you that,” the Cat—Bin, his name is Bin, why does it keep slipping free—says.

Beauty bites down on his disagreement, knowing it’ll just prove _Bin_ right.

**93.**

“I don’t really read,” Minhyuk tells him, awkwardly. He scratches at his neck, a sign that he’s embarrassed.

Beauty mentally fumbles for a moment, having not thought there existed a person not as enamored with books as he was.

“Well,” he says, desperately scrabbling for something else. He keeps his face carefully neutral.

“We have a ballroom?” he asks. He doesn’t mean to make it a question, wants to sound more confident, but he’s already faced one rejection.

Relief splashes over him like cold water when Minhyuk’s face blooms into a smile.

“Let’s go!” Minhyuk enthuses, much worse at keeping a poker face than Beauty. Beauty watches him struggle to rein it in, his excitement as fractious as an unbroken stallion. “I mean—I’d like that, I know how to dance—I mean, not well, but—.”

“Let’s,” Beauty agrees, offering the crook of his elbow to Minhyuk.

For once it’s Minhyuk who blushes, his gaze dropping to the ground. He takes hold of Beauty’s arm carefully, and they head to the ballroom.

(Beauty replays their short walk again and again in his mind.)

**94.**

Minhyuk is a liar and knows how to dance _very_ well.

Beauty starts in the lead, because he is the taller of the two, but they go through only a single waltz before he relents the role. He is more used to following, and there is a disparity in their styles: Minhyuk tries again and again for a closed position, whereas the Writer only ever taught Beauty how to dance side-by-side.

“Show me,” he begs with a smile, already stood in a stance he believes must be very close to how they will start.

Minhyuk returns at a jog from cranking the phonograph. The first creaky sounds of music drift from the instrument, and Minhyuk flashes a returning smile as they once more join hands. “I’m not a good teacher,” he says, “but I’ll try.”

For the most part, the waltz they dance is based on turns. The technical comes into play at their feet, and Beauty struggles with the steps. Minhyuk encourages him, gently correcting any mistakes and highlighting what he does well. His carriage is naturally correct, his shoulders connecting a pretty line that draw the eye away from his less-agile feet.

Beauty’s feet are just starting to ache when Minhyuk promises him that they’ve only one more dance to go. He steps away for a moment, to insert a different cylinder into the phonograph. Something more sweeping tumbles from it, and Minhyuk mouths, “Slow waltz,” as he returns to Beauty.

Beauty hesitates but relents when Minhyuk looks toward him expectantly.

“Oh,” Beauty sighs. Compared to the other dances, this one is languid, a rolling motion that makes Beauty think of a rowboat on a lake.

Minhyuk smiles and dips him back. “Light and shade,” he murmurs in Beauty’s ear. “We call the other one a rotary, for all its turns.”

“This one?” Beauty asks back, as Minhyuk brings him back up and draws him into another gentle arc.

“Just the waltz,” Minhyuk answers. “A celebration of beauty, or love, or—.”

Beauty’s ears are burning. Minhyuk is staring at him, openly. Beauty’s eyes flick between his lips and his eyes.

When Minhyuk dips him down once more, he bows his face over Beauty’s and finishes, “You. A celebration of you.”

**95.**

Beauty feels the Writer’s eyes on him at dinner. He isn’t surprised when he’s invited to the Writer’s study afterward, phrased in a way that makes quite clear there shall be no audience.

The Cat takes Minhyuk away to play with a litter of kittens, newly-born in the stable loft. (Beauty is certain they’ve never had a barn cat before.)

He’s only stepped beyond the threshold of the Writer’s study before he’s being forced into a corner, his back to a wall. The Writer doesn’t touch him, doesn’t need to: his presence is overwhelming, even if his face betrays nothing.

“You two have become friendly,” the Writer says.

Beauty makes a noise, unable to form words. It comes out questioning.

The Writer sighs and reaches up with one hand. Delicately, as if handling the petals of a rose, he tugs at Beauty’s collar, exposing more of his clavicle. “He left a mark.” The Writer’s finger is less delicate about jabbing into the forming bruise, and Beauty winces.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

The Writer smiles and steps away, releasing him. “You misunderstand,” he says. “I’m happy for you. Really.” His mouth stretches wider, and he adds, “Just be a bit more discreet, all right?”

“I’m sorry,” Beauty repeats. “I will.”

**96.**

When Minhyuk knocks on his door that night, Beauty doesn’t answer.

**97.**

“ _Are you happy here?” the Crow asks._

**98.**

Beauty doesn’t look at the Writer or Minhyuk at breakfast.

It doesn’t matter. Minhyuk catches him later in the library. The worry in his eyes makes Beauty feel wretched. The fact the first thing he asks is, “Are you okay?” makes Beauty feel worse.

“Are you and the Writer together?” Minhyuk asks. “Should I—should we—not have done that?”

Beauty is quick to shake his head. He knows what _together_ is, and while the Writer and he are united (branded in the bones, tattooed on the skin), they are not _together._ They never will be.

“Then,” Minhyuk begins slowly. His face falls, and he asks hesitantly, “Did you not like it?”

“No!” Beauty is quick to say. “I liked it, a lot. I’m just—.” He bites his lip and is reminded of when he begged the Cat for answers. A curse doesn’t still his tongue, but he understands how the Cat felt. “You have to go back to your village, eventually.” Minhyuk can’t stay there forever. Their time together falls away each day.

“Or I can stay here,” Minhyuk answers. Beauty must make some sort of expression, for Minhyuk hurries to add, “Or you can come with me. I mean, it isn’t this mansion, my home, but it’s—I like it. I can show you more dances. I’ll buy you books.”

He hesitates, his tongue wetting his lower lip, and says, “If you want to?”

“I’d like that,” Beauty answers. He tilts his head up, and Minhyuk kisses him.

**99.**

Kissing Minhyuk tastes like _Eunwoo_ —tastes sweeter than _Eunwoo_ , tastes like smoke and home-made soup, and sweat, and tears, exhilaration, delightful stomach-flipping, a nostalgia so deep it goes into his _marrow_.

 _I’ve been here before_ , he thinks. He peeks at Minhyuk through his lashes, breathes a moan into Minhyuk’s mouth when his hand finds Beauty’s hip.

Beauty’s sat on a window seat, and Minhyuk’s knees bump into the raised wood as he pushes closer, hunger bending him over Beauty and pressing Beauty down into the cushions. Minhyuk crawls atop him, planting his knee in the space between Beauty’s thighs.

“More,” Beauty begs when they separate for breath (and a question, unasked but answered aloud). It’s not just a carnal hunger; he’s found the garden gate in his mind. He’s taking a hammer to it, he’s battering his body against it.

It’s giving.

He’s remembering.

**100.**

Beauty is not a name for a person. He wants his real name back, but he’ll use Eunwoo until he can find it.

**101.**

They curl up together after, and Eunwoo drags his fingers through Minhyuk’s sweat-clumped hair, slowly separating the strands.

“I’ll come back with you,” he tells Minhyuk. He feels Minhyuk smile and press a kiss to his side.

“I’d like that,” the younger man whispers. “You make me feel—” (He’s never been good with words, Eunwoo remembers, but they’re so heartbreakingly sincere that it doesn’t matter.) “—like I’m special. But you also make me want to do better.”

Eunwoo keeps playing with his hair, eyes closed. “You are special,” he answers. It’s the one thing that hasn’t changed in the thousand and one lives they’ve all lived. It’s always Minhyuk who enacts change.

**102.**

(Once upon a time, Bin said, “Rocky? He’s like a living flame.”

Fire can’t change its nature. Even if it dies fast, even if it’s reborn again and again. It can never stop burning, it can never stop warming. It destroys and it saves.)

**103.**

“It’d be nice if you could stay with us,” the Writer tells Minhyuk in passing. He smiles when he says it, and Minhyuk shoots Eunwoo a pleased look as the Writer continues on.

“Maybe he’ll let you come with me,” Minhyuk tells Eunwoo when they’re in bed later. Eunwoo pauses in his mapping of Minhyuk’s back, his mouth pursed over the soft skin.

“Maybe,” he agrees. It won’t happen. He slips his hand between Minhyuk’s legs and gives him something else to focus on.

He likes when Minhyuk talks, but right then, he’d rather make him scream.

(They always said he had the worst personality. Face like an angel, heart like a devil.)

**104.**

The Crow is waiting for him when he opens the gate.

“Hello, MJ,” he greets it.

**105.**

He knows where the well is. It sits in the center of the garden. All the paths lead to it.

Compared to the glory of the Writer’s lands, the gleaming horses, the perfectly-manicured lawn, the garden that grows like Eden, the well feels like a relic from a long-forgotten time: when the lands were smaller, the manse less grandiose, the Writer unshackled and still free. It is encircled by a ring of stone. A stout stand with many lengths of heavy rope straddles it; the bucket is missing.

When Eunwoo peers into it, he does not see the bottom.

He unwinds the rope, thinking, _It will not be the worst way I have died_.

He thinks burning was the worst. Drowning hurts, but the smell of human flesh haunts him from a hundred lives past. He’s desensitized to car crashes, bullets to the brain, electricity through his body. Poison is bad, if the apothecary is cruel. He hates old age when he goes through it, but those lives aren’t bad memories.

He makes sure the last bit of rope is tied tight to the stand. He leans back with his entire weight and neither the rope nor the stand shows any sign of giving. Eunwoo sighs and drops the unwound coils into the well. He hears nothing, no splash, no displacement of water, and hopes it has reached the bottom.

“Not the worst,” he reminds himself. He plants his hands on the lip of the well. Sets his foot where a bit of stone has crumbled away. Hefts himself up and over the well.

And he drops.

**106.**

Eunwoo freefalls into blackness. He only knows he has touched water when chill strikes his veins, whips of greater cold slicing through his skin.

The water rushes up around his head, forcing him down deeper and deeper. It weighs upon him like a mountain, and he thinks of Atlas: forced to carry the world on his shoulders. Eunwoo only carries his love, and it weighs like a stone.

He lands at some point, upon a hard ground overrun with sand. The fine grains swirl around him in the darkness, each one a pinprick of light, distant stars that wink and flutter. They resettle as he tries to make sense of the darkness. His eyes draw shapes in the distance, things Eunwoo knows aren’t there.

He reaches out his hand and is unsurprised when he touches nothing but empty space. The walls of the well fall away this far down, where magic saturates everything.

He stands and he waits.

**107.**

They come like phantoms in the night, drawn by the warmth of a living body. They’re ghosts, after a fashion, seeking out what yet lives.

He imagines they appear differently to whoever sees them. To Eunwoo, the souls are flowers, tumbling over themselves, each one luminescent with a glow that ebbs and flows in time with his pulse.

He differentiates them by their quality.

**108.**

His own is the most easily recognized. It briefly flares supernova and drifts closest of all. _The soul recognizes the name_ , he thinks. He touches his fingers to its after-image and feels an electric current rush through him.

The Cat’s is nearly as swift, and it bobs just above his outstretched palm, its glow as soft as the moon. When it dips down to his skin, it pulls away a chunk of flesh; he bleeds. His blood swirls around the soul, deepening its color.

The Crow’s soul, in comparison, is the most free. It flutters around him, bouncing, careful never to draw too near.

He is only able to find the Writer’s soul because it is anchored to the Crow’s. It drags near the bottom, its light so faint Eunwoo squints against the darkness, trying to discern its shape. It is bound by many lengths of what looks like twine in one moment and chains the next and thorns the third. The Crow’s own bond carries a little light with it, but the Writer’s soul weeps despair as Eunwoo’s wound cries blood.

He loses some sympathy for it, when he spies the slow coalescence of Minhyuk’s soul. It is an apparition, nowhere near the solidity the other souls carry. But he knows it is only a matter of time; Minhyuk is already being bound to the mansion, to the Writer.

(He knows there is one missing.)

**109.**

Minhyuk’s soul looks the easiest to free, and he starts there. He takes hold of it, unmindful of how it flays the skin from his fingers. He drives them in, past the membrane of magic that coats it, and feeds his blood directly into the trapped soul.

The Crow never told him how best to save them, only said that it would hurt. It hurts worse than hurt, he thinks. It feels like being unmade. The soul is transparent enough that he can see how it devours the tips of his fingers, tearing off the nail, unraveling the skin, sawing away at the bone until it can feed on the marrow that flows into its core.

But it works, this partaking of his essence. The soul pulses brighter and brighter—and then it pushes off his mangled limb, rising up like a helium-filled balloon. He doesn’t watch its passage, only reaches out for the Cat’s soul.

He’s down a hand. He hopes he’ll have enough to feed the others and himself.

**110.**

The Cat’s greedy. He winces as it sets to work on his remaining hand. Compared to Minhyuk’s soul, the Cat requires a greater sacrifice. It chews through his hand then starts up his arm. It claws and bites and tears like a wild beast, sometimes lingering in one spot to leisurely lick at the carnage it has wrought.

It finishes just below his shoulder, and Eunwoo sways on the spot, faint from blood loss. He knows he should be close to death, but the magic presses in around him, keeping him stable. His own soul hovers at his side, patiently awaiting its turn.

He reaches for the Crow next, but it springs away like a startled animal. He stumbles after it, waving his stump of an arm. It darts down, hides behind the Writer’s soul, and Eunwoo frowns.

He’s torn: he hates the Writer, he hates what the Writer has done to them. But he loves the Writer, he loves the man who has given them everything again and again.

Still split between his desire to help and his desire to refuse, he kneels to examine the Writer’s soul. He touches his handless limb to the surface, just to see how it reacts.

It doesn’t try to feed on him. It just sits there, miserable and bleeding.

The Crow’s soul flickers closer, and Eunwoo forces his stump through the vines that encircle the Writer’s soul, touching its core with his mutilated flesh.

**111.**

Before his very eyes, his hand begins to reform, flakes of flesh gathering together. He watches shards of bone grow, strands of muscle thread through. He flexes his fingers and stares down at a hand mottled with scars and bruises but amazingly _whole_.

He withdraws it, wonderingly, and the Writer’s soul flinches as the chains around it spread farther, nearly snuffing out its light.

The Crow’s soul bobs in the corner of Eunwoo’s vision.

He sets his teeth and grasps one of the vines with his reformed hand.

**112.**

He tears at the vines, wrestles with the chains, tugs hard on the twine. Whatever he breaks, more grows in its place. His own soul pushes insistently at his hip, hard enough that he buckles for a moment as electricity seizes control of his muscles.

He sits back on his heels. What is he missing?

What is the Writer trapped by?

**113.**

He thinks of Minhyuk, of Bin, of MJ. He thinks of every life they have experienced, of every tale they have told.

He thinks of Beauty and what it means to be a rose guarded by a terrible Beast. In the original story, it was not the prince’s cruelty that turned him into a monster—it was his valor. Left in the care of another while his mother waged war in defense of his kingdom, the beast found himself propositioned by his caretaker. He rebuked her advances and so was turned to a beast by her wrath. He was saved by Beauty’s love, but he was always good-hearted.

He thinks of Tam Lin, dropped into a well and brought out a man. He thinks of Psyche, terrified of the monster that crept into her bed each night, though it only ever brought her joy and affection.

He thinks of many things and then wonders when stories have ever truly solved anything. He loves books, but he loves his family more. And a name is nothing without its soul.

**114.**

He kneels to take his soul. He knows it will hurt, worse than freeing Minhyuk, worse than freeing Bin. He doesn’t want to be standing when he falls. He’d rather just crumple.

It’s an undignified look, him on his knees, one arm outstretched to embrace his soul. The stump that juts from his shoulder also raises as if to hug.

When the soul finally touches his chest, he remembers just how close life and death align.

He finds out just how deeply the Writer is carved into his bones.

**XX.**

Elsewhere, the Writer drops. He is talking to Minhyuk, about how well he tends the garden, about how quickly the staff have come to appreciate his presence, about how much Beauty so obviously adores him.

He is smiling and talking, but he is not smiling with his eyes, because he never does, never can—not when his soul is at the bottom of the well, and he feels himself dying—dying, dying, this slow march toward his destruction even as he knits his family tighter together, so that they will never suffer again.

He will not see any of them unhappy.

And he has grown used to the pain of his slow oblivion. But the ripping agony that forces him to the floor threatens to blow out his heart. He wonders if this is how a hare feels: to have the skin torn from its back, to have its heart burst from fear.

He wants to scream but he’s a million pieces on the floor, and Minhyuk is slapping at his face, checking his heart rate, his breath. His eyes roll back into his head, darkness descending upon him like a black-winged crow, and he thinks, _But I still haven’t found Sanha._

The magic falls around him, unmade by love.

**115.**

He knows how the Cat felt. To dismantle, to remake. He eats the magic that made up his old body, just to scrape together energy for what lies ahead.

Eunwoo recognizes that what he’s doing is its own sort of cannibalism. He pops a finger bone in his mouth, catches it between his molars and gradually applies pressure, then wonders: _Is it still wrong if you’re eating yourself?_

**116.**

(Later, he’ll acknowledge that it’s better to know nothing. The human brain isn’t capable of differentiating between one life and the next, and a single life is traumatic enough.

When you pile up too many memories, well—he understands why Bin is the way he is, why MJ laughs at nothing, why Jinwoo—did what he did.

He’s so glad that Minhyuk rarely remembers anything.

 _It’s that fire_ , he thinks. _It just burns everything away._ )

**117.**

(He still cries for them all, because their shoulders can only bear so many burdens.)

**118.**

He rises shakily on legs of his own making. He carries a few scars, keepsakes he’ll use to separate this life from his previous ones.

A chunk of flesh missing from his left hand. A scar that spiderwebs up his right hip. A nick in the top of his left ear. A mole that hides behind his right.

 _They show the life we’ve lived_ , Minhyuk told him once, when they were fighting a war neither had any business being in. At the time Eunwoo thought he said that only to make himself feel better about the way his jaw had healed crooked.

But that was before he remembered, which came only after he’d already buried the rest of them and the war had ended with three slips of paper and land annexed by a neighbor who took it grudgingly.

Eunwoo blinks away memories and turns to the final two souls.

When he catches hold of Jinwoo’s soul, he takes no notice of how it pricks his flesh. He waits for MJ’s soul to fly closer and grabs it with his free hand; the skin on his palm sizzles at the contact. He separates them with a hard yank, throwing his own memories against the tether until it draws taut and then snaps.

MJ’s soul careens off, disappearing into the void, and Eunwoo turns his full attention onto Jinwoo’s soul.

 _You’ve caused me way too much trouble,_ he scolds it. It seems to shiver beneath his gaze, and he smiles. _But you’ve also suffered, haven’t you? I don’t think I can do much this life, but I think it’s okay for you to take a break for a while. You’ve worked hard._

He rips the curse off, slowly and methodically. He takes his time, because it’s had years and years to embed itself deep in the soul, and he needs to make sure he pulls it all off. If there’s even a small piece left, it’ll return like a creeping rot. And Jinwoo’s soul has suffered enough. He deserves some peace in the time he has left.

**119.**

(His soul is too far gone to be remade. He’ll simply die one day, probably sometime soon. But Eunwoo wants to make sure he doesn’t suffer until that happens. Jinwoo has already endured enough pain for this lifetime.)

**120.**

Eunwoo crawls out of the well to a land half-remembered.

He spies crumbling stone that could have once stood as walls, weeds that grow rampant and choke out a door hanging from its hinges. He sees nothing of the stables, nothing of the yard, nothing of the mansion that was once his home.

He is soaking wet, his clothes plastered to his skin, his teeth chattering hard in his skull. He is half-exhausted, all the life nearly wrung from him.

He stumbles a few steps further and collapses in a nest of tangled grasses.

He misses Minhyuk.

**121.**

(The souls escape before him, each one quietly slipping into its owner. The Cat’s man-flesh solidifies. The Crow clings stubbornly to his wings, because he wants one life without the weight a human form brings.

Minhyuk notices nothing, aside from a fierce desire for home, a sickness that makes him almost leave the Writer for dead, to go in search of Eunwoo and depart with him.

The Writer barely feels his newly-returned soul; it’s Minhyuk who points out how the marks retreat from his skin, fading away like years-old ink.

If the Writer cries a little bit, Minhyuk is polite enough to look away.)

**122.**

They gather together: the last remnants of what the Writer dreamed.

MJ rides on Eunwoo’s shoulder, silent as the grave. He drops down once they find Bin and Minhyuk with Jinwoo. They’ve leaned him against a tree, and Bin scoops water into his mouth. The crow hops nearer, black eyes gleaming, and caws a harsh reprimand when Minhyuk moves to shoo him away.

“No, it’s okay,” Eunwoo tells him tiredly.

The crow stalks past Minhyuk, his wing feathers ruffled, and hops onto Jinwoo’s thigh, inching up his chest. MJ says nothing when Jinwoo raises a hand to gently stroke his head. He just nuzzles into the hand, eyes closing.

“The crow belongs to him,” Eunwoo says.

Minhyuk frowns, having sized up the state of him, and asks, “And what happened to you?”

He gets up and goes to meet Eunwoo; his hands grip Eunwoo’s shoulders firmly, like he’s more than willing to bear Eunwoo’s full weight, if he’ll let Minhyuk. (Eunwoo appreciates it, he does. But he’s already realized they carry too much alone; he’ll share the weight.)

Eunwoo raises one hand, the one missing a sizeable slice of flesh, and covers Minhyuk’s with it. He squeezes Minhyuk’s fingers, drags his calloused fingers over the skin. He had worried, briefly, that so riddled with scars Minhyuk might reject him.

A rose with its petals in tatters isn’t beautiful, no matter what anyone says.

But Minhyuk twists his hand to curl his own fingers around Eunwoo’s hand, trapping him with a smile. He’s a human; he’s allowed to have scars. The realization threatens to knock him over; Eunwoo settles for draping himself over Minhyuk in a lingering, near-boneless hug.

He sighs against Minhyuk’s neck, making him squirm and laugh, and murmurs, “You smell like fire.”

**123.**

A story is never truly finished. The pages run out, the ink goes dry. But Eunwoo is tired of framing his entire existence around the lessons that stories impart. He’ll wait a few cycles before he’ll return to being a dutiful scholar.

It ends like this:

**124.**

Bin takes Jinwoo away, following a black star that sometimes resolves itself as MJ. They head true north, toward the ice and snow. (Bin’s eyes bear the whole of the moon in them, and MJ still says nothing, even after Minhyuk has stepped away to prepare for the return journey to his village.)

Eunwoo hopes they’ll be happy there, wherever _there_ turns out to be. He knows regardless of the outcome, it’s no longer a part of his story. It’s not something for him to worry about.

Minhyuk takes Eunwoo through the Thousand Woods. They follow a path laid in tied cloth and carved trees—signs left behind by Minhyuk, as he traveled with Bin. He admits with a small laugh that the village elder warned him the Writer was a witch.

(He just thinks Jinwoo was a sad, too-old young man.)

Eunwoo burns his hand on the campfire when Minhyuk casually mentions the lord had invited a man some scant twenty years before, when the village had last seen him. They never saw the man again.

Eunwoo will wonder later if it was Bin or MJ-without-wings. He pokes at the fire, scowling at his burned hand, and decides it doesn’t really matter.

**125.**

They return to the village some six months after Minhyuk had left it. There is crying, cheers, and a quiet wonder when Minhyuk divulges the lord has released them all.

Eunwoo wonders if Minhyuk discussed the details with Jinwoo or if this is a fabrication drawn from the knowledge that the Writer no longer holds the power to control them. (He decides this isn’t something for him to worry about, either.)

Eunwoo meets Minhyuk’s mother and spends most of the visit bowing in some form or fashion. He enjoys every moment, but the best are when she exits the room temporarily and Minhyuk’s hand creeps into his or drifts down to rest on his knee.

Eunwoo never had a childhood in this life, but Minhyuk ensures he enjoys every moment of a bumbling courtship between two young men foolish and giddy and full of love.

He knows it won’t be an easy life. He’s lived too many not to recognize the village lives and dies on how well it trades and produces. He also knows he’ll have to pave his own way, because Minhyuk has to help care for his mother and father and younger brother as well.

But none of that scares him. He’s lived so long in a dream—it’s about time he woke up and joined the real world.

Minhyuk finds him one morning, anxiously awaiting the first few rays of light. They smile, laugh, push each other, and when Eunwoo has finally caught Minhyuk around the middle and pulled him onto his lap, he lets go of one last thing.

“I have a confession. I know Bin called me Eunwoo, but I’d be happier if I could just be Dongmin here.”

They’re no longer stars, and he’s no longer the pretty face. He knows _Dongmin_ is a plain name. That’s why he likes it.

“Dongmin,” Minhyuk repeats, lips spreading in a smile. “It doesn’t suit you, but I really do like it.”

“Because it’s connected to me,” Dongmin answers.

Minhyuk twists in his lap to regard him, still grinning. “That’s right,” he says and leans in for a kiss. 

The first fingers of dawn stroke across them, and Beauty-Eunwoo-Dongmin remembers when the Writer first named him.

“Dongmin,” Minhyuk breathes into his ear, and it sounds like a song he’ll never tire of hearing.

**XX.**

Dongmin faces the dawning of his first day as a person entwined with the man who set him free.

**Author's Note:**

> ~~i'm dying squirtle.~~
> 
>   
> Ten thousand years ago Ray wanted a Chaky fic, and ten months later here I am with this :^) Whoops :^) 
> 
> also i had plans for all of astro to be involved w/ this but poor sanha got cut, i'm so sorry sanha :')
> 
> Major references for this came from the All Night MV, Tam Lin (specifically "Cotillion" by Delia Sherman), "I Sing the Body Electric, Especially When My Power’s Out" by Andrea Gibson, and a small interview Astro did a while back. 
> 
> When asked, "If you could remember just one thing, what would you remember?", Eunwoo chose his name. Jinwoo chose family. That set the stage for everything that followed. 
> 
> If you read all of this and didn't hate it, thank you very much. It's a really strange fic, and I don't know how I like it. In the end, it kind of took on a life of its own and got away from me. 
> 
> also hi astro fandom long time no see LMAO


End file.
